Egypt’s el-Sissi’s comical crave for popular mandate

Aliyu Musa

As if discontented with the damage done yet, Egypt’s latest military dictator General Abdel Fattah el-Sissi last week pushed the country further to the brink by stirring anti-Morsi protests in cities across the country. Such violence he said he needed to give him the mandate to tackle terrorism and violence (whatever that means?), which the Muslim Brotherhood, deposed President Mohammed Morsi’s primary constituency, symbolizes.

I have no problem with anyone seeking a mandate to initiate or foster a cause, especially if the cause is for the good of all and is legitimately pursued. But el-Sissi’s case if different because after illegally toppling a legal government he now stops short of legitimizing a well-defined act of aberration.

Egypt’s military headed by the General, to put it candidly, have by their action in the last one month evidently worked against the unity of the country and the General’s call for people’s mandate is not only a show of disdain for reasoning but very hypocritical.

But we live in a world where hypocrisy is unremittingly prescribed, administered and fully supported by the powers that be. Despite endless rhetoric about democracy, liberalism and human rights we see the exact opposite promoted by those who vocalize it most. And for the first time in our recent history those who hastily sanction ‘rogue’ regimes pretend not to recognize one that glaringly divulges all the features.

And here is General el-Sissi deviously exploiting this naked two-facedness to the fullest and at the expense of his people and country. When the Algerian violence began the world looked the other way and offhandedly traded off more than 100,000 unfortunate lives. Long before the Rwandan genocide indications ominously gazed at us, but, again, it did not matter if nearly one million impoverished Africans lived or died. So, the same cruel pretentiousness had an overriding effect. And now even as global as we pretend to be no efforts are made to stop Egypt’s reckless derail.

Although we have all blamed Morsi’s self-destruct policies for his own giant plunge what about those who exercised their right to choose who governed them but were forcibly robbed of that right and now violently squashed? Did it matter that an overassertive military chief that appropriated for himself such titles as deputy prime minister, defence minister and chairman of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces was obstinately overambitious? Did it matter that the timeframe given to the then embattled president to resolve the crisis or get kicked in the backside was unrealistic? For as long as the crisis in Egypt serves to preserve certain interests all this did not and will never matter.

Truly, el-Sissi needs a mandate to bulldoze through the streets of Cairo, Alexandria and other cities to flatten Morsi’s supporters. And this mandate could only come by resorting to anarchy as he has done. And, because he holds the monopoly of state’s weapons and agents of violence, he can’t be faulted.

Additionally, Morsi can languish in jail or like his predecessor, Sayyid Qutb, be rushed to the gallows and have his fate sealed. Would it really matter? Not to a duplicitous world that would only agree with brute dictators when they execute agendas that are inimical to their own people’s survival. Gamal Abdel Nassir, Anwar Sadat, Hosni Mubarak and now Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi have inscribed their names in distinct colours for posterity to elect how it remembers them.

With espionage retrospectively invoked and Hamas, long pronounced a terror group, neatly tied to his case Morsi’s troubles are only beginning. And it won’t matter what eventually becomes of him; after all the Muslim Brotherhood is a terror group too. So, it serves them right. Fait accompli.

Could it have been any worse than this so poorly thought out plot? If, indeed, Morsi colluded with Hamas and was spying for them why was he cleared to contest the elections? If he had prior criminal convictions and was involved in anti-state activities why did the same Supreme Presidential Election Committee that disqualified the Brotherhood’s first choice (candidate) Mohammed Khairat El-Shater not forbid him from contesting?

But now the same military, under whose nose he contested and won, turns round to tell the world the man who once was their commander-in-chief has all along been up to no good. This General, no doubt, has an impecunious sense of humour; one that makes him mention brute force and popular mandate in one breath. Even then he has millions of Egyptians to thank for letting him take them on a joy ride to nowhere.